Residents of the biennial Austronesian International Arts Award (南島國際美術獎) are showing freshly completed works inspired by Austronesian cultures or the landscape of Taitung County at the Taitung Art Museum (臺東美術館). In the first tier of this juried government-sponsored contest, artists were chosen for a fully-funded 30-day residency in Taitung County during which they completed a themed work. In the second tier, works were chosen for a NT$300,000 top prize and two awards of NT$100,000 each.
■ Taitung Art Museum, 350 Jhejiang Rd, Taitung County (台東縣台東市浙江路 350 號 ), tel: (08) 933-0252. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 2pm. Until Aug. 31
Photo courtesy of Michael Ku Gallery
A Database of Living Bodies: The Production of Image Variations with Color Ink (活體資料庫：變異形象的墨彩製造) is an inventory of beasts delicately rendered in ink or gouache, a thick paint that builds up easily into layers and lends a sculptural feel. Eight contemporary Taiwanese artists created zoo animals with office-worker hindquarters, baby chicks with tentacles and other oddball assemblies of familiar animal parts.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣藝廊), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Until July 27
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
The Rural, the Scar, the Southwestern Soul: Works of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (鄉土‧傷痕‧西南魂─四川美院作品展 ) is a group exhibition that surveys Scar Art (傷痕美術), a chapter of Chinese art history dealing with the Cultural Revolution. Beginning at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (四川美院) in the 1970s, painters began to shift from idealistic portrayals of heroes to realist depictions of rural figures, minorities and memories of the Cultural Revolution.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號), tel: (02) 2361-0270. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. General admission: NT$30
■ Until Aug. 24
Landscape of Man (人的風景) is a two-part exhibition offering a look at modern China through art. One gallery is covered with scripts, clips, posters and sound samples that survey Lou Ye’s (婁燁) oeuvre, which is typical of post-1990s “sixth generation” cinema in treating people of modern urban China. Meanwhile, Chinese contemporary artists Song Kun (宋琨), Wei Jia (韋嘉) and Qi Zing (齊星) show paintings of lovers, friends and single human figures caught in private and unguarded moments.
■ Michael Ku Gallery (谷公館), 4F-2, 21, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段21號4樓之2), tel: (02) 2577-5601. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Aug. 17
There Has Been (此曾在) features two Taiwanese artists who each recreate a long-gone experience on film. Su Hu-hsien (蘇育賢) presents Chair (椅子), a gleeful 20-minute paean to a standard-issue wooden chair that in his childhood doubled as a time machine. Against a pale blue wall, Chu Yin-hua (朱盈樺) coordinates blown-up sepia-toned family photographs to reflect stories between moments and persons within them.
■ Fotoaura Institute of Photography (海馬迴光畫館), 2F, 83 Chenggong Rd, Greater Tainan (台南市成功路83號2樓), tel: (06) 222-3495. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 8pm, closed Mondays and Tuesdays
■ Until July 27
Nothing like the spectacular, dramatic unraveling of a political party in Taiwan has unfolded before as has hit the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) over recent weeks. The meltdown of the New Power Party (NPP) and the self-implosion of the New Party (NP) were nothing compared to the drama playing out now involving the TPP. This ongoing saga is so interesting, this is the fifth straight column on the subject. To catch up on this train wreck of a story up to Aug. 20, search for “Donovan’s Deep Dives Ko Wen-je” in a search engine. ANN KAO SENTENCED TO PRISON YET AGAIN,
Despite her well-paying tech job, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked for help running a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed up and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure. The 30-year-old woman from Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, hopes one day to start an online business importing furniture from her home country. “I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want independence.” Li is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who are leaving their country in search of opportunities, more freedom or better financial prospects at a
When the Dutch began interacting with the indigenous people of Taiwan, they found that their hunters classified deer hide quality for trade using the Portuguese terms for “head,” “belly,” and “foot.” The Portuguese must have stopped here more than once to trade, but those visits have all been lost to history. They already had a colony on Macao, and did not need Taiwan to gain access to southern China or to the trade corridor that connected Japan with Manila. They were, however, the last to look at Taiwan that way. The geostrategic relationship between Taiwan and the Philippines was established
Sept. 9 to Sept. 15 The upgrading of sugarcane processing equipment at Ciaozaitou Sugar Factory (橋仔頭) in 1904 had an unintended but long-lasting impact on Taiwan’s transportation and rural development. The newly imported press machine more than doubled production, leading to an expansion of the factory’s fields beyond what its original handcarts and oxcarts could handle. In 1905, factory manager Tejiro Yamamoto headed to Hawaii to observe how sugarcane transportation was handled there. They had trouble finding something suitable for Taiwan until they discovered a 762mm-gauge “miniature” railroad at a small refinery in the island of Maui. On
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